Number 52

In New York Lotto under the 6/59 + 1/55 · Jan 2010 – Oct 2010 rules — 83 draws, 6 from 1–59 (an earlier era).

17times drawn · chance expected 8 +3.11σ

5draws waiting · a wait this long: 65% for any number

4.5average wait between appearances · chance says 9.8

9longest completed wait · >99% chance of one at least that long

52 looks unusual on its own — and unremarkable among 59 numbers

Drawn 17 times in 83 draws against 8.4 expected, +3.11σ. Testing all 59 numbers at once means about 0.6 should look this way by luck alone, so the threshold tightens to 1.7e-4 and this does not pass it.

Number 52, draw by draw

Drawn 17 times in 83 draws · average wait 4.5 draws · longest completed wait 9 · waiting 5 draws now

a completed wait — darker is longer the wait still running — a lower bound, not a finished gap

Where it lands in a sorted draw

Sort a draw and 52 has a favourite seat — chance gives a large number the high positions more often. That is the shape of sorting, not of the machine.

1st smallest0 · chance 0.0
2nd smallest0 · chance 0.0
3rd smallest0 · chance 0.2
4th smallest3 · chance 1.6
5th smallest6 · chance 6.5
6th smallest8 · chance 8.7

Every position’s lane →

The company it keeps

Seen most often with these — chance gives every partner about 1.5 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

20 22 35 58 8 12

Never drawn alongside 12 of the other 58 numbers; chance expects about 13 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 52 is picked about 0.86× as often as an indifferent choice — 34th most popular of 59. That changes nothing about whether it comes up, and everything about how many ways a jackpot on it would be shared.

Numbers above 31 ×0.86

The model and its sources → · What people believe about 52 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2010-09-29	1	6th	8 13 20 35 41 52
2010-09-25	9	5th	7 25 37 44 52 58
2010-08-25	1	5th	9 12 26 49 52 55

What this cannot tell you

Nothing here predicts the next draw. A number’s history is a record of a fair machine’s past, and the machine keeps none of it: 52 is drawn with probability 6/59 tonight whatever it did last week.